Penny's last hope: The new farmer in town
by onlinepancake
Summary: Penny is stuck in an abusive life that she cannot escape. No one seems to love her not even her mom. Everyday she wakes up with hope but is disappointed. Perhaps a newcomer to the town can save her heart.


Penny's eyes were as heavy as lead as she forced them open to the start of another miserable day. Even though Penny's life hadn't been easy living, cleaning, and working with her alcoholic mother in a poor trailer, Penny had hope that this day would be better than the last. She was drained from the previous day because she had been up until late at night cleaning up her drunk mother who had peed herself on the couch and she had to clean her and the house up while her mother was unconscious.

Despite her aching muscles she forced her body to get up and get started on the new day. She sat up on her bad and looked at the sight of her messy room cluttered with books and clothing that she really needed to find time to clean. She changed from her nightgown she was wearing into her usual attire of a long sleeve button up yellow shirt and knee length zip-up brown skirt. As she exited her room she was greeted by the gruesome sight of the kitchen sink. She groaned as she looked at the sight of the dishes piled up in the sink because she had been too busy to finish them the night before.

A part of her wanted to just leave the dishes there and not worry about cleaning them up. Maybe if Penny just pretended that if the dishes weren't there they would just go away. But Penny knew that if she left the dishes there they would only get worse.

Her mom seemed to think that if you left a problem alone it would just go away and look how well that turned out for her.

Penny walked to the sink, floorboards creaking under her feet as she did, and started washing them. While she washed the dishes Penny thought about the lesson she was going to teach her kids today. Penny worked as a teacher for the two young 2nd-graders that lived in Pelican town: Vincent and Jas. Pelican town was too small and had too few kids to have any semblance of an elementary school. The mayor paid her part time minimum wage to make sure that both kids were well educated. Penny knew how important an education was, because she never had the money for college and here she was living in a trailer struggling to pay the bills. She was going to make sure that both Vincent and Jas could make it to college and have a better life than she did.

Penny finished the last dish, and put on her shoes before leaving the small trailer without disturbing her mother who was still sleeping from being up late last night drinking. Penny started walking to the Pelican Town Museum and Library. It was called a museum despite the fact that it had no artifacts whatsoever. The owner of the museum, Gunther, promised anyone who found him rare artifacts any valuable items that he might find.

Penny laughed, what idiot would go through all the trouble of finding rare artifacts just for the vague promise of, "valuable items." Still Penny should be glad that a town as small as Pelican Town had a library, it wasn't big enough for a school. After all, Penny loved to read. It was one of the few things that distracted her from her dead end life. It looked like Penny would be working for very little money and taking care of her mother for the rest of her life with no end in sight.

As she walked on the bridge to the library she passed Alex who was playing with his football. She smiled at him but he didn't notice her at all. Few people paid much attention to her. As she entered the library and saw Vincent and Jas waiting for her she couldn't stay sad and gloomy as she stared at their smiling faces. Penny loved kids as much as she loved books.

Not that Penny would ever get to have a kid. Like Alex, no boys in the small town payed any attention to her whatsoever. To most people she was just Penny, the shy daughter of the town drunk. Not that anyone would want to date her anyway when there were girls like Haley around who said she was a model in several magazines, and gamer girls like Abigail.

Penny walked through the library and sat with Jas and Vincent at the table where they normally conducted their school. Jas greeted her by saying, "Hi, Ms. Penny!"

Before Vincent even said hello he blurted out the first question that popped into his mind as he tended to do, "What's your favorite kind of bug ?"

Most adults would have just laughed at his random and silly question, but Penny thought for a moment and replied, "A butterfly."

Vincent gave her a strange look and said, "Butterflies aren't bugs!"

Penny smiled and said, "Actually they are, and that gives me a good idea for today's lesson…"

Penny was very good at turning everything into a teaching moment which was what made her such a good teacher. Penny proceeded to give the children a lesson on what defined bugs and insects.

Vincent paid uncustomary attention to the lesson because the little boy loved everything creepy and crawly. Jas was decidedly less enthusiastic until Penny pulled out a book showing pictures of all the different kinds of butterflies. Both students were fascinated and Penny smiled because she knew she was passing on her love of books to the children. After exploring some more bugs, she had them practice their times tables, practice writing short stories, and work on their handwriting. Jas was an excellent student as usual but Vincent struggled as he usually did. He tried very hard though and that made Penny happy.

Soon the afternoon had passed by and Penny said her goodbyes to the children. Vincent commented on how sad he was that his mom was making Lentil soup that night. The two kids both left to go back to their respective households and loving mothers.

She would be lying if she said that she didn't envy them a little bit.

After gathering her books, Penny started walking home. Normally, she would have some free time to read in the little grove of trees that she loved to read in but today she had to continue cleaning up the dingy little trailer she lived in. She groaned as she thought about all the laundry there was to do.

On her way back to the trailer she bumped into Mayor Lewis who commented on how it was Friday. "You know what day Friday is, Payday!" He proceeded to give her the meager wage she earned but it still made her a little happier nonetheless. She might have enough money this week to actually buy and cook some real meals.

Penny entered the trailer and wasn't surprised to see that Pam was nowhere to be found. Her mother would either be spending her unemployment money on microwave burritos at Jojo mart or buying beer at the saloon. If she followed her usual routine she would enter the trailer late at night very drunk and pass out on the couch. Hopefully she wouldn't pee herself like she did last night.

Penny got hard to work cleaning. She did their laundry and wiped down the cupboards. As she was cleaning in her room she passed the cracked mirror hanging on her wall. She examined her reflection.

Penny didn't think she was very pretty despite the opposite being quite true. She had beautiful chestnut hair tied up in a bun on the back of her neck. She had kind green eyes, and no blemishes on her face. Her skin color was white with a very slight tan. She was wearing small emerald earrings that were the last birthday gift from her father who had left years earlier..

Despite her beauty her confidence had been destroyed when her father left a couple years ago in the fall. Penny blamed herself and thought if she had been more beautiful, more hardworking, and just a better person her father would have stayed. Then maybe her mother wouldn't be as bad and life would be better. Her present situation wasn't helping with her confidence problems.

After she cleaned for a long time it was getting late and Penny surveyed her hard work. Her house was looking as good as a tiny little trailer like it could and she let herself collapse on the sofa and have a few moments rest. She looked at the clock and realized that she had a little extra free time to read. She pulled out the book she was reading at the moment titled ,"Dragon Dust," and started to read. But she had scarcely read more than a page before the door to the trailer screeched open. She looked up and saw her mother Pam standing there, very red in the face, clearly in one of her moods after drinking all night. Pam looked at Penny comfortable on the couch reading her book and seemed to get more angry for no reason..

"So this is what I come home to. An ungrateful child lounging on the couch lazily doing nothing despite how much I have done for her in my life."

Penny got up and in an attempt to defend herself retorted, "Says the woman who just spent hours spending the little money we have drinking in the saloon."

Even though it didn't seem possible Pam's face got redder. "I can't believe you have the audacity to sit there and talk back to me. For your information insolent little girl I probably would have more money to buy all the beer I wanted I had not have you! If you didn't exist I would probably be a rich woman, enjoying life far away. Instead I'm stuck here with you." Pam shouted.

This made tears spring to Penny's eyes because there was just a little bit of truth there. If Pam had never had Penny she very well may have more money. None of this was her fault of course but at that moment she believed it was. All the stress and blame was getting to be too much for Penny.

Pam crossed the room and loomed over Penny and grabbed her book and threw it across the trailer. "Go to your room!" She barked.

.This was all much more than Penny could bear and she ran to her room and slammed the door behind her. She threw herself onto her bed and started crying. She hugged a bear named Minnie that she had had since she was little and was torn and in tatters. She asked herself what she ever did to deserve all this. How could she fix her life? She was doing everything that she could. She stared out the little cracked window in her room at the stars and started talking to the sky.

"Please if anyone is up there watching me please help me somehow. Help me fix my life I cannot do it on my own." She sobbed.

With that she collapsed back on her bed and cried herself to sleep in a little ball without changing her clothes from the day or pulling the blanket off.

Little did she know that her pleas were about to be answered.

A farmer was about to move into town the next day, tired from the monotony of his boring city job.


End file.
